Private education planning endangers public schooling

Ambitious politicians and executives including President Barack Obama have unveiled programs for educational transformation over the past few years. These schemes involve high-stakes standardized tests, teacher accountability and, bizarrely, a quest for profit. These reforms, while purportedly designed to benefit students, are detrimental to real learning. Instead, they benefit the test-makers and shareholders.

Following former President George W. Bush’s failed No Child Left Behind Act and Obama’s own Race to the Top initiative, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers unveiled the Common Core State Standards, to be enacted state by state.

Common Core furthers past programs’ emphasis on science, technology, engineering and mathematics at the expense of liberal arts disciplines but also continues to privatize “public” education at the high school level. This is an affront to the idea of democratically designed curricula available to all students.

In addition to its focus on STEM fields, Common Core institutes a raft of new standardized tests to measure students’ performance. These tests are notoriously difficult and force teachers to gear their curricula to the test. This is in spite of any experimental, superior or otherwise different lesson plans that the teacher may have had in mind.

Common Core also demands that “informational” texts should be used at the expense of fictional works. While nonfiction obviously has vast merit in education, requiring nonfiction to be used at the expense of quality literature is a crime to students who will never develop a love of reading, from the Harry Potter series or whatever elementary students are reading these days.

As if these curricular alterations were insufficient to coerce school districts across the country into federally acceptable pedagogy, districts are developing schemes to “evaluate” teachers based on their students’ scores to these tests, according to The New York Times.

Instead of allowing their colleagues, peers and administrators to evaluate their abilities to touch their students’ lives, teachers will be forced to improve their students’ arbitrary test scores.

These plans, from Bush’s to Obama’s to state governors’, clearly fail to fix a glaring problem: Education can only be improved by sufficiently funding schools and removing pervasive poverty from the equation. In lieu of this, the country cannot achieve substantial educational progress.

Then for whom are these plans designed? Who benefits from increased testing and curricula focusing on STEM? The answer, unsurprisingly, is the companies that shape educational policy.

Pearson PLC, a British corporation, is highly involved in everything Common Core. Pearson, along with IBM, Intel and Cisco Systems, funds the Education Development Center, which conducts studies and gives recommendations to politicians regarding how to change the education system.

Starting in May 2014, Pearson will also administer and design New York’s teacher certification system’s evaluation test. This is a disturbing intrusion of a corporation – whose sole obligation is to its shareholders – into the sphere of education.

Assertions that these plans will benefit students are false. Touted by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Obama, these “reforms” are instead a retrogressive, profit-increasing effort to dismantle and privatize education for the benefit of private corporations.

In American education, inequality proves damaging

A recent report from the Southern Education Foundation shows that nearly half of public school students in the country are from low-income families. The measure of “low-income” was taken from data that shows the percentage of children in school receiving free or reduced lunch. Seventeen states have a rate of over 50 percent low-income students, up from four states in 2000.

Many pundits will argue that, to improve public education, we must focus on the schools themselves. The solutions vary, some pouring more money into the schools, shifting budgets of curriculums, getting rid of tenure and labor unions for teachers in the formation of charter schools and heavily testing students across the country. After all, the United States is currently ranked 17th in education among the developed world.

A simple comparison of education systems worldwide, however, leaves out some very important factors. Finland, for instance, currently outranks the U.S. in education.

It is true that Finland’s education system, in terms of curriculum and philosophy, is different from that of the U.S. But comparing the U.S. to Finland is not a very controlled reasoning.

This is mainly due to the heterogeneous population of Finland, where there is a large absence of poverty and far less diversity than there is in America.

It is inequality that truly plagues public education in the U.S. A recent report by the National Center for Education Statistics found that states like Massachusetts and Vermont compete with some of the top education systems in the world. Conversely, public education in the District of Columbia and states across the Deep South are unable to keep up.

While schools across the nation cut gym and the arts from their curricula, this does nothing to address the root cause of underfunded education systems. It only helps schools temporarily remain afloat while simultaneously eliminating fields of study.

Correcting America’s public education problem requires a much more comprehensive approach. It is no coincidence that the states with the weakest public education system are also the poorest in the nation.

Addressing poverty and wealth inequality, both major issues in their own right, will work to improve students’ performance. It will also allow for more state funds to go to education.

Working on improving communities around public schools is integral to improving education. Simply pouring money into programs and getting rid of teacher unions may be a quick fix to our system.

While increasing funding is majorly important for many districts, there has to be a way to make regular budget increases sustainable. These solutions only work in the short term. When all is said and done, there is little effectual change.

The picture is much bigger than the budget and what goes on only inside the schools. Schools that fail usually do not have adequate parental involvement and are located in poorer neighborhoods.

If we continue to ignore community improvement and only focus our attention inside schools with temporary solutions, then we will continue to chase our problems in circles that are unsolved, and our public schools will continue failing our students.

A privatized SUNY? It may not be so far away

Geneseo successfully concluded the “Shaping Lives of Purpose” fundraising campaign on Sept. 27, raising $23.3 million and exceeding its goal. The campaign’s success demonstrates the generosity and dedication many feel for Geneseo. This effort, however, was conducted in response to what the college called in 2010 “significant budget challenges due to the steady erosion of support from New York State.”

Increased reliance on private donors risks the privatization of Geneseo’s education, a public good.

The fact that the college is forced to rely on charitable donations is due only to the refusal of the state legislature to sufficiently fund it. This shameful neglect of education has already caused irreparable damage. One of the most egregious examples is the administration’s removal of the college’s majors in computer science, speech-language pathology and studio art in 2010, depriving future students of focus in these fields.

But perhaps more damaging are the tuition hikes. According to the Democrat & Chronicle, tuition is set to increase $300 per year for the foreseeable future. While trivial to some, this additional fee is onerous to others, potentially putting college out of reach. This increase could provide a disincentive to working-class students, forcing them to put their higher education plans on hold or diverting them to a two-year college at first. And, of course, many of those two-year colleges are facing similar tuition increases.

There was a time when post-secondary education was a luxury for the wealthy and for the wealthy alone. The creation of publicly funded colleges – with the State University of New York system as a prime example in terms of number of alumni, quality and affordability – expanded educational access to millions of students.

With budgetary shortfalls at both the state and collegiate levels, access to education as a fundamental right is now threatened.

At this point, Geneseo is a public college in name only. For the 2012-2013 budget, a mere 28 percent of the college’s funding came from the state. Close to 70 percent came from tuition – in other words, extracted from the student body.

Private donors step triumphantly into this environment. Two alumni donated $1 million each, and Charles “Bud” VanArsdale donated $2.5 million to the campaign. With these enormous financial gifts comes leverage. It is not inconceivable that present donors have enacted some form of concession in return for their contributions or that future donors will do so.

Indeed, this is already happening with corporations in so-called “private-public partnerships.” As reported in The Lamron, on Sept. 13, U.S. Rep. Chris Collins said that he favors legislation that facilitates these partnerships at Geneseo, funding commercially viable scientific research.

This would subordinate the college’s scientific advancements to the profit motive, an incentive not renowned for its humanitarian inclination. Research that does not appear at first to be profitable would be sidelined in favor of research that would benefit the private sector but not necessarily humanity as a whole.

Had this always been the norm, advancements such as Boolean algebra, for which commercial applicability is not readily apparent, would be delayed or nonexistent. Modern computers rely on Boolean algebra to operate, illustrating the destructive capability of subordinating intellectual developments to those who are most useful to businesses.

This trend of relying on the private sector – whether extracting exorbitant tuition fees, being influenced by private donors or commercializing research – has the net effect of privatizing the college in practice, if not by law.

Threatening access to an allegedly public good, this trend is unacceptable. Education is a right for all – not a privilege for the few.

NASA budget cuts put scientific discovery at risk

National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced on Oct. 23 that the Hubble Space Telescope helped astronomers discover a galaxy from the dawn of time, 700 million years after the Big Bang. This discovery will help astronomers learn how the world and the Milky Way Galaxy came to be. But with rising cuts for federal programs, research and development, NASA’s budget is poised to dramatically decrease.

President Barack Obama’s budget proposal for 2014 has cut NASA’s overall budget by $300 million, bringing it to $16.6 billion. NASA’s budget has declined by roughly $1.2 billion since 2012. Despite an uncertain political climate fraught with partisanship, NASA is too essential of an agency to cast aside.

Just hours into the government shutdown, an asteroid just missed the Earth by four million miles. Though a seemingly minute detail, the government had no well-developed prior knowledge of this occurrence, leaving many to speculate, “What if?”

The asteroid was about 1,300 feet wide, a size that science educator Bill Nye calls “continent and human existence killers.”

The lurking asteroid is proposed to return in its orbit in about 20 years from now. The next time it passes, the asteroid could possibly strike and produce a “force powerful as a couple of thousand atomic bombs,” according to Sara Seager, a professor of planetary science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Nye listed some options to prevent obliteration, such as large rockets and lasers. The common denominator for both options is one important detail: money. In order to start researching properly into “asteroid hunting,” according to Nye, the government must open up funding for the forward-thinking program.

The age-old saying “ignorance is bliss” is fine and dandy until a molten rock the size of a state enters the atmosphere and vaporizes all of human existence. It sounds a touch over the top, but it is uncomfortably true that the government needs to allot more cold hard cash to prevent that rogue piece of rock from entering our atmosphere. If it does not, the risks are immeasurable.

There is a plethora of information about space yet to be discovered due to cancellation of the space shuttle program in 2011. The absence of manned space missions is already a glaring symbol of NASA’s decline.

This has led NASA to rely on China’s exponentially expanding space program and rent seats aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft in order to charter our own astronauts to the International Space Station. The individual tickets for those seats sell for $63 million.

During the space race, astronauts returned home as national heroes. To this day, the legends of space exploration still are being found in textbooks and blockbuster movies. Yet today, the general population does not know the names of any astronaut aside from Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

The government must make space exploration as much of a priority as it makes social programs that benefit the general population. We may not know it yet, but there is plenty out there waiting to be discovered that can have a tremendous impact on the state of our planet.

Believe it or not, blackface is still not OK

Halloween seems to bring out the worst in some people. Each year, countless participants dress in racially charged costumes that hark back to an ugly chapter in history when it was OK for white people to crudely portray people of color. It’s always fun to dress up as whomever you want – or imagine yourself – to be. But it isn’t an excuse for us to forget about exactly who we’re portraying and how we’re portraying them through our costumes.

Dressing in racial drag reduces whomever your costume portrays to a skin color. If the only way you can portray someone is by altering the color of your skin, it implicitly says that you define people chiefly by race.

Furthermore, if people knew the disgusting history behind racial drag, they might be more reluctant to dress in it.

According to contributing editor at The New Inquiry Ayesha Siddiqi, “Racial drag was invented to control the representation of nonwhites (particularly on TV, film, and other media) and still does. It created racial archetypes that continue to echo in culture-wide understandings of people of color.”

So for people wondering what the big deal about racialized costumes is, the answer is pretty simple. The history behind blackface, brownface, redface and yellowface is one that is inextricably bound to the subjugation of people of color by whites.

Actress Julianne Hough recently found herself at the center of a costume controversy. Portraying the character Crazy Eyes from the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black,” Hough went in blackface. While those who know her personally have leapt to her defense and said that she meant no harm, her intent is irrelevant.

Blackface has a long history in the United States for its use in minstrel shows. Beginning in the early 19th century, white actors, using makeup, cartoonishly portrayed African Americans as being uneducated and poor, yet notably happy-go-lucky. The portrayals made slavery appear somehow mutually beneficial but were callous ways for whites to cleanse the image of slavery.

This is not a matter of being overly PC, as some may assert. This is a matter of basic human decency. If you cannot check your privilege for one night and not wear a costume that perpetuates a manifestation of white supremacy, then that may not make you a racist, but it does make you outstandingly ignorant.

To you, it may be “just a joke.” Just know that your joke is deeply imbued with the history of white people as solely manipulating the perception of people of color in the public consciousness. That sounds like a really awful joke, doesn’t it?

The deeply conflicted War on Terror

On Oct. 5, American military personnel abducted al-Qaida operative Abu Anas al-Liby, who has been indicted by a grand jury for his alleged role in planning the bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. A similar attack, also on Oct. 5, by Navy SEALs in Somalia on the Islamist militia al-Shabaab was aborted after it encountered heavy resistance.

The abduction of al-Liby from the streets of Tripoli demonstrates the multifaceted relationship between al-Qaida and American interests abroad.

Following his capture, al-Liby “was held for a week on board a [United States] warship, the San Antonio, where he was interrogated outside the normal safeguards of civilian law,” according to The Guardian.

He was then brought to a federal court in New York, where he pleaded not guilty to the aforementioned charges.

But who is al-Liby, and why did his capture warrant a blatant violation of national sovereignty? His story as an al-Qaida operative began in the 1980s when he worked with the mujahedeen, Islamist forces that former President Ronald Reagan’s administration supported to counter the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

In his Message on the Observance of Afghanistan Day speech in 1983, Reagan said that the mujahedeen were “courageous Afghan freedom fighters [battling] modern arsenals with simple hand-held weapons” and “an inspiration to those who love freedom.” These well-equipped militants later evolved into al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Al-Liby later received asylum in the United Kingdom in 1995. Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency allegedly used him as part of a plot to kill Gaddafi in 1996, according to documents leaked by former MI5 agent David Shayler. These documents said that two MI6 officers – without approval by the British government – orchestrated a plot involving the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, of which al-Liby was affiliated.

Following the failure of this plot, which resulted in a car bomb that killed innocent Libyan civilians, al-Liby allegedly planned the embassy bombings. He then fled to Iran, where he was imprisoned until shortly before the tumultuous events throughout the Arab world in 2011.

In Libya, the Arab Spring took the form of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization proxy war, in which NATO artillery and American arms assisted Islamist militias, including the revived Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, in bringing down the Gaddafi government.

The portrait of al-Liby – first as a “freedom fighter” supported by the Reagan administration, then as a British asset in a plot to assassinate Gaddafi, then as an orchestrator of embassy bombings and finally as an American ally in the overthrow of Gaddafi – creates a problem for the conception of the war on terror as a struggle between the age-old combatants of freedom and oppression.

Instead, al-Liby’s case reveals Washington’s willingness to use Islamists in one conflict while simultaneously in opposition to them in another. Then tables turn, former allies become enemies and the resulting blowback kills thousands, whether on U.S. soil or in Benghazi embassies.

This policy is morally indefensible. It reveals supposed humanitarian interventions as bald-faced lies aimed at spreading American hegemony, not democracy. American imperialism has facilitated the domination of whole countries by authoritarian regimes, including the most reactionary of Islamist elements.

This reveals the war on terror to be merely a pretext for intervention abroad and the erosion of rights at home.

Congress inefficiency continues amidst shutdown

With 800,000 “non-essential” federal employees furloughed, vital social programs shuttered and a looming debt ceiling deadline on Oct. 17, many are looking to apportion blame for the shutdown. It is perfectly valid to question how any political system can approach such a cataclysm by design.

The far-right branch of the GOP – the so-called tea party – has been using the Affordable Care Act as a smokescreen to fabricate a crisis – and Democrats, including President Barack Obama, are complicit in the resulting attacks on the majority of Americans.

According to a CBS News poll taken during the first two days of the shutdown, 25 percent of Americans – including 48 percent of Republicans – approved of shutting down the government over differences regarding the Affordable Care Act.

This was the tea party’s constituency when they steadfastly opposed the law during the prelude to the current shutdown. Add in the marathon 21-hour speech against Obamacare by Sen. Ted Cruz, and one is given quite the window into the considerations of the tea party: ideological rigidity at all costs.

Their political futures are determined not by the national popular opinion, which largely supports the ACA, but by voters in their right-wing districts.

According to The Guardian’s Michael Cohen, Republican politicians gain incentive “by gerrymandered and polarized districts … to take even more radical positions to appeal to their conservative supporters.”

For their part, Democratic leaders seemingly welcomed the shutdown. The Wall Street Journal reported that “a senior administration official [said]: ‘We are winning ... It doesn't really matter to us’ how long the shutdown lasts ‘because what matters is the end result.’”

The same CBS News poll showed that at least 57 percent of Americans view the president, Democratic leaders in Congress and Republican leaders in Congress less favorably, with 61 percent viewing Republican leaders less favorably.

The poll results show that, rather than any side “winning” the shutdown, the reality is that the Obama administration is simply losing less.

But what is the result of this catastrophic budgetary brinkmanship? Like the 2011 debt ceiling “crisis,” the end result will be a dramatic shift of “rational” American political discourse to the right. This means that cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – the remnants of a more progressive time in American politics – will be discussed as a reasonable solution to the deficit.

This obsession over the ballooning debt – “deficit fetishism,” if you will – has destroyed possibilities for progressive reform. The steps are disarmingly simple.

First, the right wing of the Republican Party is intransient over a particular issue. Second, the Democrats, in the name of “bipartisanship” or “compromise,” give the Republicans everything they requested. Third, news coverage and political discourse discuss not whether to cut but how much to cut. Rinse and repeat until the federal government no longer provides social services.

The Democrats are either unwilling or incapable of mounting a defense of social programs, let alone passing new progressive reforms. Obama indicated his willingness to proceed in an interview with CNBC, in which he said, “It is important for us to deal with our long-term entitlement spending.”

He also said, “I think it is very important for us to continue to cut out programs that are unnecessary, not working – some of them need to be reformed.”

Regardless of what is deemed “unnecessary” or “not working” next, Americans can be assured that “reformed” means gutted and discarded.

How Syracuse public schools can be a model for the nation

While public school districts across the country are being forced to tighten their belts, there is something remarkable happening in the city of Syracuse. Once the home to one of the weakest school districts in New York, Syracuse is undergoing something of a renaissance of its public school system thanks to Say Yes Syracuse.

An $88 million plan, Say Yes Syracuse is an outgrowth of the nonprofit organization Say Yes to Education, which has chapters throughout the Northeast. Say Yes Syracuse, however, is the first of these chapters to be adopted by a city school district rather than an individual school.

The program aims to increase graduation rates and college enrollment. It does so by offering services that would otherwise be unavailable to students, such as tutoring, after school programs and SAT preparation: services that the Syracuse City School District has been forced to cut.

The centerpiece of Say Yes Syracuse is its scholarship program. Say Yes is aligned with 54 private institutions that offer a full scholarship to students from homes with under $75,000 in annual income. Say Yes offers full tuition – after need-based government aid – to students admitted to New York state institutions.

Already, Say Yes is yielding positive returns. According to the program’s website, ninth grade dropout rates between 2009 and 2010 dropped by 44 percent. The number of students passing the ninth grade algebra Regents exam increased by over 30 percent. Since 2009, nearly 2,000 Say Yes students have enrolled in two and four-year colleges.

Syracuse’s investment in education is one that should serve as a model for the rest of the nation. Investment in education has returns that go far beyond graduation rates: It creates a well-educated workforce that is equipped for both occupying and creating high-paying jobs.

Say Yes’ scholarship program not only gives students the opportunity to pursue higher learning but also allows them to do so without the burden of student debt that can bring about financial ruin to young people.

While the program is still young, Say Yes Syracuse has great potential to ameliorate the city’s economic problem. The effects of a strong public school system are felt several times over. Crime rates have been decreasing, economic growth increasing and property values rising – home values in Syracuse have seen a 3.5 percent rise since 2009.

In December 2011, the city of Buffalo implemented Say Yes to Education at the district level as well, becoming the second city to do so. It is encouraging to see New York’s public schools giving education the investment it deserves. If similar programs can reach school districts throughout the nation, the U.S. could be on its way to solving its education problem.

Fake ID penalties miss the mark

New draconian penalties for the use of fake IDs have been enacted at the state level, disproportionately punishing underage students who attempt to illegally enter bars or purchase alcohol. According to The Livingston County News, anyone caught attempting to use a fake ID will not only have it confiscated, but the offender’s state driver’s license will be revoked for 90 days. While probably well intentioned, this policy misses the point entirely. Instead of penalizing students who attempt to purchase alcohol, efforts should focus on making sure that the alcohol is consumed responsibly.

The suspension of a license potentially carries destructive repercussions. It could impact employment and educational opportunities, in turn hindering the ability for students to pay the $200 fine and $85 surcharge associated with a guilty plea for the charge of “Unlawful Possession of a Fake or Fraudulent” license.

Moreover, the state Department of Motor Vehicles is considering notifying an offender’s car insurance company of violations involving fake IDs. This could cause an increase in premiums, creating a further financial penalty.

These consequences hardly correspond with someone trying to avoid the cover charge at the Inn Between or even a 19-year-old student trying to buy some beer. Instead, the revocation of someone’s right to drive only serves to alienate law enforcement from the student body and hamper efforts to make sure that deaths from alcohol poisoning and drunk driving are avoided.

Programs to educate students – without the moralizing, misinformation or fear mongering – on how to drink safely can be effective in reducing negative drinking consequences. While these programs all too easily fall into exploitative or implausible ruts, they can reduce students’ deaths without alienating the audience that they are ostensibly protecting.

But perhaps this entire discussion misses the point. The issue of underage drinking could be solved with relative ease – all it requires is a reduction in the drinking age from 21 to a more reasonable age of 18.

While equally arbitrary, it would allow for students to become familiar with drinking before, in many cases, getting a car. Research by Peter Asch and David Levy indicates that “learning to drink” before driving may be effective in reducing drunk driving.

While many balk at the thought of dramatically reducing the drinking age to levels not seen since the age of Mothers Against Drunk Driving hysteria, claiming that it will cause “kids” to drink more, I would argue that the legal drinking age does little to influence students’ behaviors.

To illustrate this point further, over the weekend of Sept. 20 and 21, there were 14 fake or fraudulent identification violations logged by the Geneseo Village Police. If those 14 people attempted to illegally get alcohol, I doubt the law stops many others from doing the same thing and getting away with it.

There are many good reasons that I have heard given for abstaining from alcohol, but I have never heard the legal argument. Parents typically have greater control over their child’s activities than the law, and even parental control evaporates in college. Letting students determine their own actions – and keeping them from injuring others – is the only justifiable course of action.

Until then, students’ lives will be disrupted unnecessarily thanks to ill-advised crackdowns on something that has become, for better or worse, a ubiquitous aspect of collegiate life.

Geocaching becoming a local, worldwide pastime

They're hidden everywhere: in the woods, on top of mountains, around vast deserts and even lurking around on the borders of Geneseo campus. They're geocaches - small, secret treasures that might be closer than you might think.

It may sound strange, but it's all part of the thriving pastime called geocaching, which, in recent years, has become one of outdoor enthusiasts' favorite hobbies.

Pronounced “gee-o-cashing,” the high-tech hobby has only been in existence since 2000, but has quickly gained popularity as a 21st century treasure hunting game. To play, participants use a GPS-enabled device to find a geocache hidden at a location attached to a specific set of coordinates listed on geocache location websites.

A geocache is typically just a waterproof container with a logbook, in which the geocacher can enter their name and the date the geocache was found. The geocacher then replaces the container exactly where it was found and leaves it for the next player to discover.

According to the Groundspeak website, “Geocaching is the real-world treasure hunt that's happening right now, all around you!”

And it definitely is everywhere; the unique pastime now reaches all over the globe. In fact, geocaching.com claims that there are approximately 2,226,360 active geocaches worldwide, with over 6 million geocachers originating from more than 200 countries.

While most geocaches are easily accessible, if you're looking for a real treasure-hunting trip, there are definitely some pretty extreme locations to explore.

Luckily, if you're just looking to start hunting for geocaches, you don't have to go that far. In fact, there are sites all around Geneseo, from Long Point Park at Conesus Lake to some historic sites in the village to the trails of Letchworth State Park - even on the College campus itself.

So if you're interested, give it a shot. It's cheap, it's active and it's an easy way to get outside before the weather turns cold. Plus, who doesn't love a treasure hunt?

Milne Library renovations based on student opinions

Milne Library, a favorite Geneseo haunt for many students, has improved its resources and accessibility. The historical document collection recently reprinted a variety of historical texts from the Genesee Valley, ranging from cookbooks to phonebooks to a plan for a railroad from Buffalo to Washington, D.C.

These books were previously only available in one library in the state, and the library staff not only makes hard copies available to the Geneseo College and community but also puts digital copies online for easy access.

Special Collections Librarian Elizabeth Argentieri said she hopes that these historical collections will “improve access,” “put our [Geneseo] name out there as publishers” and make Geneseo and its historical collections more known to the students and community.

The second and main floor of the library, which contains Books & Bytes as well as most private and group study areas, also went through some dramatic changes. The library staff focused efforts on making the library’s materials and space as accessible as possible for student utilization.

“I like it [on the second floor]. I think it makes it a lot less cluttered but I also feel like there is not as much seating area … Milne always seemed really crowded at the beginning of this semester. I feel like even though there is less seating than there used to be people come to Milne, so its nice with less clutter.” junior Rachel Crawford said.

The spaces were changed “to make them a bit more effective,” library staff member Ryann Fair said. “The front desk is actually a lot easier to navigate. The spaces are more delegated for particular things … it’s more crowding in the computer area,” senior Emily Withers said.

Among the changes is the addition of an area that used to be office space for staff members. Cubicles and private study areas now allow students to work with one another. There’s also a new comfortable space put aside for the library’s reference collection instead of having it share the space with a computer lab.

“It’s more wasted space because a lot of people don’t want to sit next to someone that they don’t know. So those six person tables don’t get used or are by one person at a time,” sophomore Brad Mulligan said.

The library conducted a survey over the summer and took students’ suggestions in reorganizing the space and these changes are made completely around the students’ wants and interests.

Field hockey coach Jess Seren continues success at Geneseo

Jess Seren, head coach of the Geneseo field hockey team, knows a thing or two about success in the sport. In her sixth year as head coach for the Knights, Seren has led the Knights to the SUNYAC tournament the past three years. As the most-winning coach in the program’s history, Seren has shown her ability to transform the Knights into powerhouses in the SUNYAC conference. It was just one word that drew Seren to field hockey.

“I loved ice hockey growing up, and since our school didn’t offer that sport, I decided to choose what I thought was the next best thing: something with the word hockey in it,” she said.

She quickly found success in the sport and continued her playing career at SUNY Cortland. There, she was a four-year starter before graduating in 2006. While playing for Cortland, she earned second team All-Region from the National Field Hockey Coaches Association on three occasions, was a three-time All-SUNYAC selection and was the SUNYAC Rookie of the Year in 2002.

During her four years, the Red Dragons made the NCAA tournament four times. But it was Seren’s fifth trip there that was the most special. This time she was on the sidelines, coaching the 2010 Knights team to its first tournament berth.

“My greatest accomplishment here at Geneseo has been winning the conference and going to the NCAA tournament back in 2010,” Seren said. “There are many teams and coaches who don’t get a chance to experience either throughout their careers, so I feel extremely fortunate, and it’s something I will never forget.

“Understanding your team from year to year and making the necessary adjustments is a challenge that presents itself every season,” she added. “No team is ever the same, so you have to constantly be able to adapt and figure out what works best given what you have. It’s a big puzzle, and watching the pieces come together and fall into place each season is what makes coaching so fun and rewarding.”

The Knights stand at 3-3 going into conference play, and Seren said she remains hopeful for this team.

“Winning the SUNYAC title is a goal of ours every year, but we understand that in order to get there, we have to take it one day and game at a time,” she said.

Defense great women's soccer, offense still struggles

On Saturday Sept. 21, the women’s soccer team found itself a second-straight draw, tying the St. Lawrence University Saints 0-0. There are mixed signals coming from this result, a theme that seems to surround the team this season. Goalkeeper senior Julia Sanger had five saves to keep the Knights alive. The conference recognized her efforts, naming her the SUNYAC women’s soccer defensive player of the week on Monday Sept. 23.

Sanger has not allowed a goal in nearly six hours of playing time. Head coach Nate Wiley said it’s her leadership that really sets her apart from other players. He added that her saves in one-on-one situations have been boosting the team.

But of course, it takes more than one player to keep a streak like that alive.

“Defending is key to our success,” Wiley said. He added that Geneseo’s four starting defenders have been playing beyond their years, and there will always be a “learning curve” when playing with two freshmen, a sophomore and a junior.

While the defense seems to have things figured out, the offense continues to struggle. In the last seven games, the Knights have scored eight goals. Not a bad ratio until you learn that seven of those goals came in one game. This inconsistency is what the team struggles with.

“That’s something we’ve been working quite a bit on,” Wiley added. He pointed out that the team has made plenty of opportunities but just hasn’t finished.

One player who has had more opportunities than most is forward and midfielder freshman Erin O’Connor.

The Remsen, N.Y., native has “great pace,” Wiley said.

“When she puts together her eye for through balls and her ability to recognize gaps, she will be able to put away more shots,” he said.

In many situations, numbers can only say so much but they seem to be telling the whole story for Geneseo here. They need to get on the good side of the statistics sheet and things will likely turn around then.

The Knights begin SUNYAC play Friday Sept. 27 at Buffalo State College, so time is running out for them to work on what has been troubling them.

Going into the weekend, the Knights have the sixth-best record in the conference.

Men's soccer still having hard time against set pieces

The Geneseo men’s soccer team continued its losing streak this week as the team lost to Hobart College on Saturday Sept 21. Being the third loss out of four games for the Knights, it seems as though the team might have to head back to the drawing board. Head coach Dominic Oliveri said that he was tense about the game against Hobart because of the team’s performance against the University of Rochester as well as the similarity in playing styles.

“In formation, they play very attack-oriented soccer, they’re very technical and their movement off the ball is really good,” Oliveri said.

Nevertheless, Oliveri said that he felt the team performed well against Hobart despite the score. He said that the team played differently and with more effort against the Statesmen.

“Honestly, I think my [players] are a little embarrassed after Tuesday’s performance,” he added. “The effort was embarrassing [against Rochester], and I think that stayed in their head. They knew they had to come out and play a better ball game.”

Even though Oliveri said that Geneseo played well against Hobart, the team still has not improved its defense on set pieces. Both goals by the Statesmen were allowed off corner kicks. Six out of the 13 goals against the Knights this season came from set pieces. In the game against Hobart, Geneseo surrendered eight corner kicks, while the Statesmen did not allow any.

Because of this, Oliveri said he has started to rethink how the Knights defend set pieces.

“So I play man to man, but I think, starting today, I’m going to start playing more zonally-approach defensively and see if that gets them engaged mentally on set pieces,” Oliveri said. “Hopefully that will work.”

Oliveri also said that he hopes to tackle the problem by working on the formation of the team as well as the type of defense when playing against corner kicks.

“[The team] wanted to play a traditional 4-4-2 formation,” Oliveri said about one of the team’s improvements during the game.

Although the formation change has only been implemented against Hobart, Oliveri said he hopes the team will feel more comfortable playing in the formation.

The Knights can test out their new formation on Friday Sept. 27 against Buffalo State College and Saturday Sept. 28 against SUNY Fredonia.

Invasion of Privacy: Diego Droguett confesses story behind Facebook page

After spending most of his adolescence moving from different towns, cities and countries, junior Diego Droguett made a name and home for himself in Geneseo as the mysterious creator of “Geneseo Confessions.” It was during last spring when Droguett took a semester off for personal reasons and created the Facebook page after fearing that he would lose his connection to Geneseo.

“I was missing Geneseo and I was going through personal issues, so I felt that I could really benefit from a page like that, and I thought others might too,” Droguett said.

According to Droguett, the page slowly grew a fan base. At its peak, the group had acquired over 1,500 fans and Droguett had received around the same number of confessions.

“It's really cool, I think, to see people coming out and people opening up to this anonymous page and then having the Geneseo community comment,” he said.

While Droguett said he appreciated the encouragement from the student body, maintaining the page involved time-consuming work. He had to create a schedule to help make the page run smoothly.

“I would check it multiple times a day, and when I felt comfortable that there were enough confessions, I would post them in bulk. So I would post four or five, sometimes up to 10 confessions,” he said. “I would do that once a day.”

On Sept. 17, Droguett logged on to Facebook to find that “Geneseo Confessions” had been deleted, and his personal account had been banned for 12 hours. Droguett said this was due to one of the posts on the page violating the terms of service. After the 12-hour ban, Droguett made a conscious decision not to make another page.

“It was a lot of work, and I didn't want to set up another page. It took a while to get the large following it did,” Droguett said. “I've noticed the Geneseo Facebook groups have been dying down lately, so I decided to just kind of leave it in my memories.”

Another “Geneseo Confessions” page has since been created, though Droguett claims no involvement.

Without “Confessions,” Droguett said he is now more focused on completing his degree in biology. He hopes to follow in his parents' footsteps - both are heavily involved in the sciences - and do pharmaceutical research.

Droguett was born in the Bronx, N.Y. After his father received a job offer, Droguett and his parents relocated to Concepción, Chile for four years. According to Droguett, the move wasn't too difficult.

“I was raised with the same customs as they were, so I adapted really well there,” he said.

While constant movement helped define his adolescence, Droguett said this helped him make the most of college when he eventually started his studies at Geneseo.

“I've never really started off with a fresh, clean slate like everyone else,” Droguett said. “So I definitely took opportunity of that and just met a whole bunch of new people because we were all in the same situation.”

Ultimately, Droguett said that all of his travels and experiences - from the Bronx to Chile to Geneseo - have taught him invaluable lessons.

“Being in the Bronx, I grew up and I learned to just fend for myself,” Droguett said. “In Chile there were huge family connections I made that I still keep today. Everywhere I go, I just take something in and keep it.”

Thoreau-Harding project gets digging in the name of commemoration

Work on the Thoreau-Harding Project is underway for its third semester, according to Edward Gillin, professor of English at Geneseo and initiator of the project. The project's goal is to create a replica of Henry David Thoreau's cabin on Walden Pond and pay tribute to late Geneseo professor and Thoreau scholar Walter Harding.

Students in the ENGL 239 course are primarily leading the project that began in fall 2012. They are seeking to “devote [their] hands, minds and philosophical gumption to learning deliberately,” according the project's website.

“As my proposal that was accepted indicated, this was going to be a class where we had a goal, and all of the means and all of the direction of achieving that goal were going to be put entirely in the students' hands,” Gillin said.

At first, the project faced many obstacles.

“The fall of last year was entirely consumed with logistical, administrative and legal matters,” he said. “But by the spring, we finally actually had all permissions, all systems go.”

The building site was established near the entrance to the arboretum on the south side of campus last semester.

“This semester, we have one more hole to dig, and we'll be doing that starting next week; when that gets finished, the foundation will be complete,” Gillin said.

The English course itself entails reading Walden by Thoreau as well as reading works by Harding. This reading has both practical and philosophical purposes.

Harding taught in Geneseo's English department from 1956 to 1982, wrote seven books on Thoreau and helped found the Thoreau Society, according to the department of English website.

“These are some of the only sources we have of what we should be building. There are no surviving pictures, and the structure itself is long gone,” Gillin said. “We have to rely on Thoreau's account and the accounts of a few individuals who left their records and manuscripts in the Thoreau Institute Library.

“Maybe as important though, it gives us philosophical grounding,” he said. “We talk about what Thoreau's ideas are and what they represent to each one of us as we read them.”

Looking toward the future of the project, Gillin said he is optimistic.

“We do have funds because one of the things some students did is apply for a grant, which got approved. We're crossing our fingers that we get something like a frame erected this semester.”

Pope Francis’ comments signal major change for Catholic Church

In an interview last week, Pope Francis I shocked the world with his comments regarding the Roman Catholic Church’s stance on issues concerning gays and abortion. The pope said in an interview that the church is “obsessed” with these issues and that he was critical of Catholics putting these doctrines before love. He has chosen not to address these issues even though many Catholics want him to.

Francis’ comments signal a shift in the priorities and overall philosophy of the Catholic Church, which may eventually lead to broader acceptance. While the church has a long way to go regarding the acceptance of gay and women’s choice issues, the pope’s comments are a step in the right direction.

It may be hard to imagine a world in which the Catholic Church is completely understanding and accepting of these social issues, but the fact that Francis made these comments is astounding. It is a huge change that the church has never seen. He called for action and said that he wanted the church to be a “home for all.”

While important members of the Catholic Church have often said in the past that we are all God’s children and that the church is for everyone, it has often been behind the curve regarding important social issues including sexuality and contraception.

Francis’ comments have paved new possibilities for not only his papacy and the church but for other religions and people all over the world as well. Hopefully, others will replicate his willingness to abandon outdated stances.

One thing that has not been brought up too much is the bravery of such an interview. Of course the pope will have millions supporting his actions and decisions, but his grand gesture is at odds with the opinions and ideals of many members of the church. Not to mention it goes directly against the former Pope Benedict’s vision of a tighter, homogenous church.

Some have criticized the pope, however, for not providing women the same positions in the church that are available to men. Despite the progress made by Francis in his short tenure as pope, this is one area in which the church is still drastically behind. Although given his progressivism thus far, it is not inconceivable that women will be allowed the rights that they have historically been denied by the church.

I will compare it to voting rights in the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries. As any history book will tell you, black men had the Constitutional right to vote in 1870, and women were granted this right in 1920. In this battle in the 19th century, many did not want to grant black men the right to vote until women could vote as well.

Historians argue that because of the way it worked out, perhaps the black males’ right to vote paved a way of later tolerance and acceptance of women’s right to vote 50 years later. Even though Francis did not directly address the issue, based on his recent comments, I’d say that it is likely that more changes are in the making for the Catholic Church.

Social media surveillance: coming to a school near you

According to CNN, Glendale Unified School District of Los Angeles, Calif., has signed on with Geo Listening, a company that closely monitors students’ postings on social media sites. This broad surveillance into students’ lives, especially outside of school, goes too far and is simply inappropriate.

At the same time, students must realize that posting on social media sites is a voluntary relinquishing of privacy to a public forum. For that reason, Geo Listening is not violating any rights.

Glendale took this extensive and expensive measure – Geo Listening cost the district $40,500–in part due to two student suicides in the past two years, which may be the result of cyberbullying.

The school’s main intent is most likely to reduce cyberbullying, yet the long list of monitored issues includes illegal drug use, self-harm, disruption of class or school-related activities, hazing, sexual harassment, threats or acts of physical violence, use of fake identification, use of obscenities, racism, weapon use, suicide and despair. This absurdly long list posits ambiguities that may intrude into students’ activities outside of school and thus impinges upon a role that should be left to parents.

CEO of Geo Listening Chris Frydrych said, “No matter where [the students] are, if they are advertising it in the public domain, it’s no different than if they’re standing in front of a teacher.”

Moreover, Frydrych said that Geo Listening can’t tap into posts that are set to private. Students should not feel as if they are standing in front of a teacher while at home, yet they do have full control over what school authorities may and may not read by picking and choosing what they post.

With that said, this unapologetically invasive system can turn the teacher-student relationship into a tedious game of cat and mouse that will reduce students’ trust in school authority figures and inadvertently serve to further ostracize students from adults in the face of controversial issues like cyberbullying.

Ultimately, the question remains as to whether or not the potential to protect errant teens from themselves outweighs the distrust and discomfort that spawns from Geo Listening’s intrusive solutions and Glendale’s overreaching authority.

This very well may be the case if the system proves to effectively prevent something as horrible as teen suicide, which tends to affect the whole community. Glendale, on the other hand, certainly could have used the $40,500 it spent on Geo Listening on an equally safe and much less disconcerting program. For example, Glendale could have spread awareness of teen suicides as they relate to cyberbullying.

Either way, Frydrych said Geo Listening expects to have at least 3,000 customers worldwide by the end of the year.

Whether or not this measure proves to be effective, it sets a dangerous precedent for school overreach. Kids should not feel as if they are under the watchful eye of the school administration at all hours. Cyberbullying is a massive problem that needs to be addressed, but there are other, less Orwellian ways to do that.